S. G. MacLean

12 fiction

S. G. MacLean is the pen name of Scottish historical novelist Shona MacLean. She holds a doctorate in history from the University of Aberdeen, specialising in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Scotland, and uses this academic background to construct detailed historical crime novels shaped by religious conflict, political intrigue and social division. She has twice won the Crime Writers’ Association Historical Dagger and received the Waterstones Scottish Book of the Year award for The Bookseller of Inverness.

MacLean’s first historical mystery series follows Alexander Seaton, a disgraced minister and schoolmaster investigating crimes in Scotland and Ulster during the 1620s and 1630s; its novels include The Redemption of Alexander Seaton, A Game of Sorrows, Crucible of Secrets and The Devil’s Recruit. Her five Damian Seeker novels, beginning with The Seeker, follow an intelligence officer serving Oliver Cromwell amid the espionage, religious radicalism and Royalist conspiracies of the 1650s. Her standalone historical thrillers include The Bookseller of Inverness, set after the Battle of Culloden, and The Winter List, which takes place during the restoration of Charles II in 1660.

Periods and events

Commonwealth and Protectorate Execution of Charles I Restoration Thirty Years’ War Stuart Period Abolition Movement in Britain Late Georgian Reform Era

Historical fiction

Historical fiction series by S. G. MacLean (2 series)

Damian Seeker in Order

by S. G. MacLean 6 books 4.4

The Damian Seeker series follows the feared intelligence officer who serves Oliver Cromwell during the Commonwealth and Protectorate. Beginning in London in 1654, Seeker investigates murders and conspiracies among soldiers, lawyers, religious radicals, Royalist exiles and government spies, using the authority of Cromwell’s guard while concealing his own…

The Seeker

4.3

The Black Friar

4.5

Destroying Angel

4.5

The Bear Pit

4.5

The House of Lamentations

4.5

The Winter List

4.4

Alexander Seaton Series in Order

by S. G. MacLean 4 books 4.3

The Alexander Seaton series follows a disgraced former minister who works first as a schoolmaster in Banff and later within the academic world of Aberdeen. Between 1626 and 1635, Seaton is drawn into murders involving poisoned bodies, family secrets, dangerous books, religious division and the recruitment of Scottish…